Other stuff

Archive for May, 2011

Having had a quick search about, I’m astonished that no one’s created a mash up image based on the weak pun that came to my mind the other day. I can’t be the only one who spent a fair bit of their youth reading both Tintin and Transformers comics. And with the respective films coming out over the summer, why hasn’t anyone else made something out of The Secret of the Unicron? All that search engines give me are people with no ability to spell or messageboards claiming to be based on Cybertron. For crying out loud, it’s there for you people on a plate! Here’s the cover of The Secret of the Unicorn and this is what Unicron looks like in his untransformed, planet shaped form. Anyone else see the big circles waiting to overlay one another? Then just a quick flip of a couple of letters and boom! My Photoshop skills are limited to colouring in at the moment, otherwise I’d go ahead and knock it together myself, but I can’t have been the only person sad enough to have thought of this, can I?

A month or so ago I was invited to contribute to a magazine that friend of the site Paul edits. Details on the availability of that when I have them. The remit was to put together something no more than 40 lines long related to the theme of food. I came up with a few ideas about what to write about – a first person narrative of a communion wafer briefly turning into Christ, something relating to cannibalism, a vague idea about a not terribly amusing misunderstanding between ‘hare’ and ‘hair’. I didn’t actually try and write any of those up, but did have a crack at two of my ideas. What follows is the one that I didn’t bother submitting as it was weaker conceptually and I had no idea how to end it satisfactorily. Make of it what you will.

“Urgh!”

“What?”

“There’s meat in the cupboard!”

“Yeah.”

“But that’s disgusting.”

“No it’s not. It’s dinner.”

“You expect me to eat that?”

“If you want to eat what I’m cooking, then yes, I suppose I do.”

“So what’s it doing in the cupboard?”

“Defrosting.”

“Couldn’t it do that somewhere more appropriate? Like the fridge perhaps?”

“I only took it out at lunchtime. No way a piece that size would defrost quickly enough in the fridge.”

“Doesn’t seem very hygienic.”

“It’ll be fine. I often stick stuff in there to thaw.”

“But did you have to stick my tea towel on top of it?”

“Well I didn’t want flies getting at it. That would be grim.”

“But it’s all bloody now.”

“We’ve run out of cling film and slinging it in a carrier bag seemed more than a little bit manky. Besides its not that bloody really, is it?”

“Now you mention it, no. No it’s not. How come?”

“It’s special.”

“Special?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

“It’ll be fine. I’m told its very tasty.”

“Well what is it?”

“Guess.”

“Um . . . beef?”

“No. Look closer.”

“Err . . . oh! Is that an eye?”

“Yep.”

“Oh God! Where did you get it?”

“Found it.”

“Jesus! Where?”

“It was lying around at work. I think someone left it.”

“We can’t eat this!”

“Course we can. It’s supposed to be really tasty.”

“No, no, no.”

“We can’t let it go to waste.”

“Well I’m certainly not putting it in my mouth.”

“Then you’ll just have to go hungry then.”

“I think I can live with that. It’s gross!”

“Don’t be silly.”

“But it is!”

“Oh come on. Don’t tell me you’re having moral issues with this?”

“Well . . . no, no, it’s not that.”

“Really?”

“Okay, maybe a bit.”

“Come on. What does it matter? Meat is meat.”

Transparency report – The original hand written draft only goes as far as the line “We can’t let it go to waste.” Everything following on from that I wrote over the past twenty minutes or so. I’m not a hundred percent happy with the whole thing. The use of ’special’ makes it feel too indebted to The League of Gentlemen, which wasn’t at the forefront of my mind when I wrote it but does seem to have influenced it somewhat. One of my reasons for abandoning the piece when I did was that I wasn’t sure how to end it (though the main one was because I was getting uncomfortable sat in my garden, propped up by the pole that holds up the washing line). I think keeping things ambiguous was the best way to go with it, as some of the conceits I’d come up with would have made it a little more horrible than it is now. Some of the resolutions involved ‘The Defroster’ working in a hospital, being a guard in a concentration camp, doing something that involved him working near or with roadkill (my initial thinking was to definitely make the meat squirrel) and probably a couple of others. All and none of these are true in terms of the tale. Pick one or make up your own. The whole thing is of course based on my own habit of defrosting meat in cupboards, because it is often a better way to do it than in the fridge. Though I have had countless people moan about this idiosyncracy, I have never actually cooked for anyone other than myself with cupboard meat. This is partly through cheapness and selfishness, though mainly because no one would ever want to eat anything I’d serve up to them. They’re probably right you know.

Just spotted that a Something for the Weakened Tumblr site has sprung up. I’m not going to link to it as it has nothing at all to do with anyone involved in the curation of this site and in fact appears to mainly be filled with nudie photo’s of nubile young lassies. Perhaps this was an attempt by spammers to appeal directly to me, or indeed to flatter me with their banner implying that the site is run by a ‘twenty-something’, but I’m afraid it hasn’t worked. Please ignore them and perhaps they might stop it. Unless it’s something I set up in my sleep, in which case I am very sorry.

Couple of weeks back I was walking home – my bike was suffering from a bout of my repeatedly trying to fix a puncture, so foot based perambulations were the only option the mothballs in my wallet would really offer me until I bought a new inner tube. This general air of thriftiness only really stretched as far as public transport though. I had just done a spot of shopping and my rucksack was laden with groceries. As I ambled along a penny happened to catch my eye and the old rhyme sprang into my mind.

“Find a penny, pick it up and all day long you’ll have good luck.”

It was a warm, sunny early evening. There were people around on the street certainly, but not enough that I’d be blocking anyone’s passage if I paused to stoop. I briefly wondered how scummy the public would consider me if they saw me picking coppers up off the street, but quickly concluded that I actually didn’t care and quite fancied a bit of luck.

I arrived at the coin and bent forward to clasp it in my not so clammy hands. I just had it in my grasp when I was surprised by a loaf of bread lightly glancing the back of my head. The zip on my rucksack has been a bit dodgy for a few months now, so I always have to be careful when closing it. On this occasion I clearly hadn’t been.

Now I’m generally not a superstitious man, despite the events that occur in this story. Quite what possessed me to act upon the rhyme appearing in my mind I couldn’t begin to speculate, but it did appear to bring me some fortune. Yes , the loaf did clonk me in the back of my nut, but because of that I was able to grab it before it plummeted out of the bag onto the floor, presumably followed by the other foodstuffs I had been carrying. Had I not bent forward, I imagine that the zip would have gone at a later point during my journey when it was entirely behind me. The first I would have known of it would have been when my grub spilt itself out onto the path behind me.

As it was, I was able to save everything from making contact with the pavement, carefully carried my bag to a nearby bench, repacked it and carefully zipped it up in such a way as it did not open up of its own volition for the rest of my stroll.

No, I’m not a superstitious man. But I haven’t left the house without that penny since. And my bag hasn’t opened of its own accord since. Though that might be because I check it more carefully now. And don’t really buy individual Mojos anymore. But anyway, “How lucky is that?”*